40 bags in 40 days

Honestly, I wasn't sure I would ever get around to writing this post. I have been carrying the tally around in my head for 6 weeks now, though, and I need to get it down on paper. We haven't filled the equivalent of 40 bags yet, but I'm curious to see where we are. (A bag, I decided, is one tall, kitchen trash bag.)

• Clothing: 1 bag
• Hat box, hat, old purses and wallets: 1 bag
• Cassette tapes and computer game disks: 1 grocery bag
• Set of tires: 4 tires = 4 bags, I think
• Filing cabinets: 4 bags (although I'm not sure this counts, since we replaced the two, mismatched, two-drawer filing cabinets with one lovely, Korean-made 4-drawer one--a net of zero really...hmmm...I'm still counting it because it looks prettier now. ;-D)
• Bunk bed frame and padded boards - calling this 10 bags
• twin-size mattress and waterproof cover - 5 bags
• Sets of sheets: 6 twin-sized (calling this 2 bags)
• Random sheets that were not in sets: 3 queen-sized, plus a pillow case (calling this 1 bag)
• Twin-sized comforters: 2 (these went to people who are still in post-tsunami temporary housing)
• Small briefcase - 1/2 bag
• baby toys - 1 grocery bag

Okay, so we're at about 31.  Could be worse, but with only Holy Week to go, it could be better. When Katie and I go through the bins of hand-me-downs in the garage, I expect to easily hit 40. But it might not be until after Lent. :(


Other items slated for sale/disposal before we PCS:

• patio table
• 4 patio chairs
• gas grill
• Meghan's tiny, plastic slide
• Little Tykes car--I can't believe how long this little car has lasted--it was a hand-me-down to Tommy and Patrick when we lived in Turkey, so it has lived on two continents, just like us: )
• 2-3 kids' bikes, although one is going to be a fight. Matthew is too big for the bike he learned to ride (and named "Lance") last summer, and we'd like to hand Joseph's bike down to him. Joseph is going to be riding Tommy's old bike when we get it fixed up.
• refrigerator
• two satellite dishes (We mostly only use our TV to watch movies on DVD so it's crazy that we even have these. We took them off the house last fall and put them in the garage, but I haven't been able to sell them yet.)
• living room couch
• crib mattress
• vacuum cleaner--it's as if someone accidentally hit the self-destruct button on this thing; the motor still works great, but the rest of it is literally falling apart. We are relying on duct tape to keep it together for the next four months
• grass trimmer
• depending on where we move, possibly the
• lawn mower
• dishwasher
• outdoor play house
• hopefully, at least 1/3 of the baby and children's clothing that I have saved--there is much more than one child could ever wear in those bins now
• all the duplicates of the old photos that are out in the garage
• one set of matching Turkish grain-sack pillows ( I should probably get rid of more of these, but I'm not quite ready to do that yet)
•  board books (I'm ready to cull through these and only keep the ones I'd like to have around for the grandchildren to read when they visit)

I just pray that when all of this is gone, we will be under our weight limit. We have lived in this house for six years, and we've had a baby since then. Even though Tommy cleaned out his room pretty well last summer, it still feels like we have way too much stuff. We need to sell the refrigerator and couch, but we hope to give most everything else away.  There are so many people in need here, and my hope is imitate (in a very small way) the detachment of my Confirmation Saint.

"As for her charities, they will bring upon us a divine blessing. We shall not want, so long as we let her relieve the poor as she does."    
--Louis of Hungary, about his wife, St. Elizabeth 

Lent

This has been a challenging Lent for me. Last year, I was totally prepared, to the point of having done two weeks of preparatory work to set up my spiritual reading and action before Lent started. On Ash Wednesday, I was good to go, and I started directly into a new prayer routine as well as the usual sacrifices. Then, on the first Friday of Lent, we had a 9.0 earthquake. The kids and I ended up taking one of the Voluntary Departure flights home to my parents' house and driving up to South Bend, IN, where Patrick is at school and my sister and her family live. We stayed at their house and shared in their beautiful Lenten practices of nightly family rosary, abstaining from meat for the whole season, Sunday Mass at their cathedral. We continued our school work in their home.

In Holy week, we learned that it was safe for us to return to Misawa. Just in time for Easter. :D We were supposed to arrive home on Holy Thursday, but flight delays brought us here on Good Friday. Grateful as I was for our safety, for the joyful, peaceful, restorative time with my family, and to return to John in time for Easter, I missed the Lent I had planned for myself.

So this year, I decided that I would go back to last year's plans and complete them this year. Easy to do, I thought. For hadn't I already gotten all set up last year? I could just fall right in where I had left off.

Ha.

Unlike last year, when Meghan had not started preschool and Katie was not yet in high school, my daily schedule has been a bit out of my control. Katie played indoor soccer, then joined the Edgren HS soccer club, and now their girls' soccer team. Joseph joined Boy Scouts and is playing basketball. John and I are teaching Confirmation along with leading the mens' and women's groups at church. Okay, I was leading the women's group last year, too, but you get the picture.

How can I have gotten too busy for God? Well, I haven't, really. I just don't have the same spaces in my day as I had last year. My worship time is more tied to my time at daily Mass and in the quiet moments afterwards, while my morning prayer takes place in whatever tiny space falls between making John's lunch and wishing him a good day and Meghan calling down the stairs to ask about breakfast. Usually, that means I have time to do my women's Bible study homework, but not much else, and sometimes it is at the breakfast table. At lunchtime, the children and I go to Mass and pray the Angelus together. After school, I drive Katie and a friend to soccer practice and try to get in a Divine Mercy chaplet on the drive home. We have lamely attempted nightly family rosary. I am determined to make that happen every evening between now and Easter, and hopefully beyond. We used to be so good at that one, but schedule changes pushed it right out. I miss it too much to let it be gone anymore.

But no Mother's Rule of Life for me this year. :[ One of these years, probably when I don't have any children left at home, I'm going to get through that book and bring "order to my home and peace to my soul." It isn't too late to start, I guess, but ugh! I wanted to do it during Lent to be finished before we start gearing up for our PCS pack-outs, which we hope will be in June. Serious de-cluttering will be needed before then.

Which brings me to 40 bags in 40 days. Another thing I am doing for Lent. Sort of. I haven't been keeping very good track. Just trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible. Again, no order to this. Just stabs here and there at various closets and bedrooms as they get annoying enough to make me want to attack and clean them out.

I think I need to pray to St. Josemaria Escriva, who said, "If you don't have a plan of life, you'll never have order." He's right. But I need time in my day to make the plan.

40 Bags in 40 Days

Final Tally for 2010

Bags of Donations: 12
Bags of Trash/Recycling: 18
Repurposed Items: 4

Total Bags Filled: 30
Total Left to Fill: 10

40 bags - Day 15

Working hard today, we have cleared out 5 bags of trash. Most of the credit goes to Katie, who started clearing out her closet, and John who broke down a lot of cardboard boxes and came up with a full, black trash bag of styrofoam packing peanuts to discard.

Katie and I also filled a bag of games from her closet to donate, including two Battleship games. Joseph has a third, wooden Battleship set that gets played all the time, and the plastic ones were gathering dust. She's still working on her closet, so there may be more to donate as the day goes on.

The cleaning continues, too. John pulled everything out of the laundry room today and we vacuumed, mopped, and even pulled out the dryer vent tube and vacuumed the pipe that goes out of the house. So the laundry room is completely cleaned for Easter, now. Too bad I can't count all that lint as a bag. ;)

I am feeling encouraged again. After Meghan got sick and we lost a week, I was worried that we wouldn't really be able to make much progress in the house. With a move coming in only 18 months, I am feeling the pressure to get rid of things that are not worth shipping 5,000 or so miles to wherever we go next. It's a relief to know that we will continue to make progress here this Lent and will have another Lent to go through the house again before the move. Hopefully, that will help us stay under our weight limit in our next PCS, which will make everyone breathe a little easier.

40 bags - Day 13

3 boxes of gifts and other trinkets packed for family and friends. So happy to get these mailed out. We're counting them as one bag. :)

Working our way through the school closet and math shelf. Another 1/2 bag of trash (papers, etc.) and 1/2 bag to sell/donate from those.

Lost a lot of days when Meghan was sick last week, but Patrick is picking up my slack. He's come up with at least three bags from his room.

40 bags - Day 10

Meghan is feeling better (finally!) after a five-day bout with a stomach virus. She's still a little whiny, but at least she isn't clinging to me. Back to work!

Laundry room shelf cleaned off. Cleared out a few things including light bulbs that haven't fit in a light fixture since two houses ago. Really, why do I keep these things that I might need someday and could easily replace someday for a couple of dollars?

Finished going through Joseph's dresser. He moved up a size, so we got rid of all the faded, holey outgrown shirts and pants, which filled a trash bag and left us with 1/2 a bag to donate. After the laundry is done, there will still be plenty of hand-me-downs in the box for Matthew. That's what happens when you have hand-me-downs from three older brothers.

40 bags - Day 9

I had a major slowdown this week. With Meghan sick and clinging to my lap, I had to sit back, slow down, and let go of my plans for the laundry room and Patrick's bedroom and bathroom.

Sometimes God's plan for me isn't what I think it is. Sometimes He reminds me that I need to rest with the baby, to stop and spend long hours on the couch reading books to everyone who wants to listen. To reconnect with the little ones who won't be little for very much longer. When Meghan is well, she is a very busy toddler and doesn't often slow down to cuddle. And that is when I will get back to bagging.

40 Bags - Day 6

Meghan was sick today, so I did a lot of baby holding, but not much clearing out. The baby holding was a precious gift from my oh-so-active toddler, but I do hope she will be more herself by morning. It's hard to see her so limp and tired.

I was able to donate two pairs of old eyeglasses at the hospital when we went to base this afternoon, so we still got rid of something, even if it wasn't a full bag.

Hoping and praying for healthy children tomorrow.

40 bags - Day 5

One bag of trash and half a bag to donate all from the shoe cabinet, game cupboard, and Joseph's dresser drawers yesterday. We're catching up from our missed day on Saturday.

*cleaned the front hall, too, vacuumed away yucky dust and cobwebs from the top of the closet and under the game cupboard. Joseph even cleaned the mirror and front window. Now if we can just get the front door clean, the front hall will be finished. :)

40 bags - Days 4 & 5

Not a single bag out of here this weekend. Sigh. We had plans to go through the shoe cabinet, Joseph's dresser, and the board games. I thought we would have more time for this on the weekends, but it seems we had less. Maybe because the days are less structured?

Or maybe because they are more crowded with activities, chores, and craziness, like losing John's van key at the commissary somewhere. I realized it as I finished shopping and needed to be at the movie theater in 15 minutes to pick Katie up from the movie she went to see with a friend and take her and the groceries home so that I could go to a Pampered Chef party at my friend, Virginia's house. (Katie saw Alvin and the Chipmunks. She now knows what I mean when I say that movies can make you dumber.) Thankfully, Patrick was on base with my van and picked up Katie and then took us and our groceries home. I got John's key and Patrick took me back to base where I left my name and phone number at the commissary office and went late to my party in John's van. Phew!

On the bright side, Katie went to a movie with a friend on Saturday afternoon, and I went to a Pampered Chef party with my friends Saturday evening. And by the time I got home from the party, the lost van key was on the windowsill where it belongs. The commissary had called to say the key was turned in and Patrick rescued me again by picking it up before he came home from the base.

And yes, the party is related to the topic of this post because now I know I need to clean out my kitchen cabinets to make room for some stoneware. (It's on sale this month!)

Hah! I CAN rationalize anything. ;)

Old habits die hard.

Update on Monday morning: Just remembered that Sundays don't count in the 40 days. So we're not as far behind as I thought. Yay!

40 bags - Day 3

Today I took on the cabinet below our home altar first. I cleaned out several packages of candles that we have aquired from people who were moving away, which made room to reorganize the cabinet. It will be much more user-friendly now.

A few candles didn't fill the tall kitchen garbage bag I was working on, so I decided to be a little more systematic about this. With Katie along to keep me motivated, I moved into the front hall and took a look around. Front hall closet!

Filled a bag with coats, snow pants, hats, scarves, and so many things that were going unused, even by our crew of active snow-players. Filled half another bag in the kitchen with things to throw out. Katie did a lot of the actual work. I consulted while I made the soup for tonight's soup supper at church.

When she got to the top shelf she turned it over to me. It's full of mailing envelopes, packing material, etc. Not for the faint of heart. I threw out a few unusable envelopes and decided that what this shelf really needed was to be reorganized. These are things we use frequently to mail packages home, so they need to be handy and easy to find. So I was off to the 100 Yen store for a few things. I love the 100 Yen. I should take photos sometime. It is like a dollar store, only sooooooo much better.

Found the items I needed and was home in 30 minutes. Kids were still playing happily, Katie had transferred the magazines and catalogs to a Chinese basket that had been gathering dust on top of the closet and was preparing to throw out the old magazine basket. But Meghan took it over and started carting her dolls around in it. Very cute. Not sure which day it will be before we get that basket thrown out now.

Closet is cleaned and reorganized. Katie even labeled our baskets and the new storage bins for bubble wrap and torn books waiting to be taped. I have a great feeling of accomplishment, and it really didn't hurt to throw away irreparably torn and broken things or to give away good ones that we aren't using. This may be easier than I think. Having Katie along for support definitely makes the whole thing more fun.

40 bags - Day 2

Katie's turn. She filled a grocery bag. She's pretty good about cleaning out, so I'm not pushing for a larger bag from her.

The best thing was that she inspired Joseph, who came to me and said, "Mom, I have so many sweatshirts in my drawer that I can't close it all the way. Do you think I could get rid of some of those?"

Now I just have to keep myself from interfering too much with his discarding. His turn will come on Saturday, Day 4.